Architectural Design and History
Spaces of Memory.
Commentaries
on 21st Century
Buildings
Architectural Design and History
The Bookseries Architectural Design and History intends to explore the relationships between architectural design and the contemporary city, with a particular focus on the contexts where urban transformations relate to the preservation and promotion of historical heritage. By intersecting various theories, techniques and practices, the contributions aim at unfolding the complex identity of the architectural culture, fostering connections and exchanges among different disciplines, and enhancing a strategical and evolutionary conception of architectural heritage.
The Bookseries is promoted by the Polo Territoriale di Mantova of Politecnico di Milano, which is the seat of the UNESCO Chair in Architectural Preservation and Planning in World Heritage Cities. All the published volumes undergo a blind peer-review process, which the Scientific Committee manages through the cooperation of qualified external referees.
Scientific Committee
Federico Bucci (Politecnico di Milano, Italy) Jean-Philippe Garric (Université Paris-1, France) Marcela Hurtado (Universidad Técnica Federico Santa Marìa, Chile)
Architectural Design and History
Spaces of Memory.
Commentaries
on 21st Century
Buildings
edited by
Luigi Spinelli
Spaces of Memory. Commentaries on 21st Century Buildings
edited by Luigi Spinelli Editorial coordination Elena Montanari Graphic design Tassinari/Vetta Ristampa 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Anno 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027
Copyright © 2020 by FrancoAngeli s.r.l., Milano, Italy.
L’opera, comprese tutte le sue parti, è tutelata dalla legge sui diritti d’autore.
Sono vietate e sanzionate (se non espressamente autorizzate) la riproduzione in ogni modo e forma (comprese le fotocopie, la scansione, la memorizzazione elettronica) e la comunicazione (ivi inclusi a titolo esemplificativo ma non esaustivo: la distribuzione, l’adattamento, la traduzione e la rielaborazione, anche a mezzo di canali digitali interattivi e con qualsiasi modalità attualmente nota od in futuro sviluppata). Le fotocopie per uso personale del lettore possono essere effettuate nei limiti del 15% di ciascun volume
6 Memory Exercises
Luigi Spinelli
I. Memory and Design 20 Andrew Berman.
Memory and Discretion Luca Cardani
38 Renzo Piano. Two American Art Museums
Federico Bucci
68 José Ignacio Linazasoro.
Matter and Memory of the Built Environment Renata Cristina Mazzantini
96 Paolo Zermani.
The Conscious Thriftiness Massimo Ferrari
112 Alberto Campo Baeza. Construction as a Manifesto of Architectural Theory Emilio Faroldi
II. Memory and Narration 136 Guido Canali. The Semantic Interpretation of Displaying Marco Borsotti 164 Pierre-Louis Faloci. Camera Obscurae to Display «Difficult Memories» Federico Bucci 182 Philippe Prost. «L’Espace du Vivant» Between Memory and Innovation
III. Memory and Architecture
210 Elisa Valero Ramos.
Two or Three Things I Know About Her Work Luigi Spinelli
232 João Luís Carrilho da Graça.
Experimenting
with Permanence and Transformation
Barbara Bogoni
254 Quintus Miller and
Paola Maranta.
Morphology of the Care Vittorio Longheu
270 Ricardo Bak Gordon. Architecture as Inhabited Space Between Past and Future
Christian Campanella
IV. Memory and Interpretation 294 Fernando Tabuenca
and Jesús Leache.
Palimpsestic Architecture Elena Montanari 320 Tony Fretton. Calculated Ambiguity Angelo Lorenzi 342 Renato Rizzi. «To Be an Architect You Must Be in the Grip of an Obsession»
Claudia Tinazzi
362 Álvaro Siza Vieira and
Eduardo Souto de Moura: A Dialogue on Architecture and Memory
Alberto Campo
Baeza.
Construction as
a Manifesto
of Architectural
Theory
Emilio Faroldi
«When men set out to bring beauty into his buildings architecture was born». These are the words of Frank Lloyd Wright in the opening of the volume La Suspension del tiempo. Diario de un arquitecto1
writ-ten by Alberto Campo Baeza and published in 2017.
In his book the author reflects on the period of utilitas, firmitas,
venustas, and memory, quoting characters and works dear to him, and
declaring beauty as formal choice of artistic use. Recalling the words of his friend Massimo Venturi Ferriolo, we can reaffirm that beauty of living gives quality to places, realities that we contemplate by living in them; they are garden landscapes whose aesthetic experience is based on the inseparability between life and contemplation. Contemplation of the living environment cannot be separated from dwelling in it: we act in the space observed and we grasp the result of our action for bet-ter or for worse.
Architecture indeed represents an unparalleled opportunity for mutation that tends towards improvement. It is difficult to com-prehend as now how and when it adheres to consensus and trend logics and/or, on the contrary, when it constitutes an element of dissonance towards the customs of an era.
The cultural exile to which the construction problem underwent, the parallel resolution between the designed world and the realized world, with evident reverberations on the relationship between the theoretical contributions and the applied actions, determine incisive disciplinary reconsiderations in terms of architectural practice and its conceptualization.
In such cultural context the research of Campo Baeza defines a common ground between compositional and constructive ambit, over-coming exclusively idealistic-formal approaches or attitudes aimed at observing limited technical and material variables.
Campo Baeza is a great architect, as well as master for entire ge-nerations of students: primary exponent of a Madrid school of hacer
arquitectura that focuses on the relationship between theory and practice
of the project. An architecture educator able to make theory through the built work which, by autogenesis, derives from the theory itself.
There are no ambiguities: you can be an architect or, equally, you can act as architect. Campo Baeza is an architect and, at the same time, works as an architect: this is a privilege reserved for a few.
An architect who, by making theory through the built work, ap-points the latter as a real programmatic manifesto: a treatise on archi-tecture that has become reality. His spatial thought is the result of an intellectual action.
Precisely on the word construction, composing together, lies the thought of Campo Baeza and his search for the absolute. A carpenter who becomes a poet: just like Tekton in the work of Sappho. Or again, a poet who becomes a carpenter: a soldier of architecture in search of beauty.
The concept of tectonics seems to him to be a pleasant obsession: the architectural project is both intellectual and technical action, since its conception, which is related to the construction’s order and founded on a subtle and deep-rooted technological knowledge.
The observation of the professional reality in which Campo Baeza operates, together with that of his various colleagues and students whom he manages to gather with wisdom and love, highlights the al-most «artisan» approach of his work. A cultural attitude not casual, not suffered but pursued and safeguarded by the advent of malformed methodological and project management approaches, due to the com-plexity of the reality in which we operate. A design poetics rooted in the classic values of our discipline and aimed at a technological know-ledge with a contemporary meaning. A humanist architect understood as a man of knowledge, within an approach to culture pursued through the wise translation of historical and technical evolutions.
The relationship between professional and didactic experience, and the commitment in the diffusion of theory and criticism are the expression of an architecture whose successful outcome is inextri-cably linked to the balance between material and immaterial, between scientific and humanistic principles, between matter and poetics.
In La idea construida, his theoretical manifesto, he writes: «I would like my ARCHITECTURE to be / As PRECISE as Bernini’s, as luminous. / As NATURAL as Barragàn’s, architecture for the man./ As
DESHABILLÉ as Le Corbusier’s, as strong and powerful. / NOT for the
purpose of becoming famous / But to make man happy. / NOT to be photographed / But to be lived. / NOT only for this time / But forever»2.
The careful observation of Mies’ work, reversing the paradigm and the point of observation, conveys doubts and disciplinary
tor-ments that are answered, at least as far as I am concerned, in the ar-chitectures of Campo Baeza which inevitably manage to dissolve that detachment from the reality of everyday life to which architecture should however aim.
The essence of hacer arquitectura exhibits the cognitive process of its project in the roots and not in the leaves of an imaginary building tree. Elementary doubts, spontaneous questions that require simple and therefore difficult answers.
It arises spontaneously to ask whether we are today spectators of a logical and intuitive process that still sees function originating form, or does form take on greater degrees of autonomy? Should we think of a modern antiquity or a model of ancient modernity?
And again: what weight does the image of architecture have towards an increasingly haunting architecture as image? And is it conceivable that an architectural project still exists or is now over- whelmed by the architecture of the project, that is, by its process?
In summary: what is the language of our time?
Our era, its demands, are better identified in the opacity and the solidity of the tectonic mass or in the transparency and lightness of the information society?
Campo Baeza’s architectures reassure, comfort, seek and find clear, exact answers to the foundational questions of today’s archi-tecture.
In his work, the immediate expression of the «enclosure ar-chetype» is represented by the wall, which identifies the original expression of the building. The wall: transition point, convergence of tensions between inside and outside, becomes for Campo Baeza the true architectural event.
Likewise, the façade: a border between the confined space and the external environment, performs the primary functions of physically delimiting the space, as well as filtering the building-city-landscape relationship. Limit between private conditions and public stage re-presentation: architecture reveals its basis and proposes itself within urban fabrics or converses with the landscape through characters that represent the moment of encounter between internal spatial articula-tion and place measurement. Think in this sense of the House of the
The etymology itself of the term façade is connected to the theme of the courtly and representative function: in Greek it is expressed with the word πρόσωπον (prósôpon, i.e. person) which has as its second meaning that of theatrical mask and, by analogy and reverberation of concept, the relative abstract meaning of «external appearance». In Latin, moreover, the terms mask and façade are identified with two distinct words, although in the term frons, frontis, in addition to the meaning of «forehead, face, feature, physiognomy», the figurative one of «look, external appearance» is found.
From a figurative point of view, the architecture of Campo Baeza is defined by the characteristics of its perimeter, by the construction rules and by the materials that represent it to weave a fil rouge with classicism, while condemning its sense of freedom. Thought flies to the famous headquarters of the Caja Granada (2001) and returns, in a me-taphorical and diachronic exercise, with the memory of the Pantheon.
Using the words Ernesto Nathan Rogers wrote in 1960: «The pre-sent work serves as a link between the past and the future; it is not a moment of rest but the obligatory point of passage of history, from yesterday to tomorrow. The guarantee of the validity of today’s work is precisely in obliging history to go through new inventions»3.
Classical architecture found in natural elements the tools to make its image «alive»: light, shadow, colours, vegetation, time and its work in the aging process. Campo Baeza’s architecture identifies its presupposition in the reinterpretation of these elements: a reinven-tion and a Pirandellian renew that finds its essentiality in the cradle of classicism. The reduction of the limit between truth and fiction, between real and artificial, is attributable to the severe and rational tectonic articulation.
A technological and constructive truth that refers to the works of the classic and that through his «thinking with hands» first become
modern and, in parallel, contemporary.
Campo Baeza states that: «Neither Mies van der Rohe nor Le Cor-busier have ever copied, imitated the form or language of the Acropolis or the Parthenon, yet they have always known that there is a need to have one’s roots embedded in history, not to copy but to know. And his wisdom is necessary. This wisdom, which is knowledge of history, is also knowledge of technology»4.
The concept of transparency, from a semiological point of view and in an empirical form, contrasts and alternates with the idea of body and heaviness, linking itself in an allegorical form to the theme of lightness. The opacity and transparency relationship in Campo Baeza’s architecture refer to the antithetical combination of heaviness and lightness, between eternity and relativity of existence. His con-structions remain perpetually suspended in an alternation of tran-sparency and opacity, of liquidity and solidity, but even more of purity and severity, incorporating both properties internally.
«Reason, therefore, is the main tool of the architect: architecture cannot be defended as “artistic” or even as pure reason. Architecture
is reason accompanied by knowledge of technology»5.
In all of this, the «suspension of time» leads to abstract concepts which it is up to the architect to transform into matter. «For the future, for the present and for the past — as he reported during a recent inter-view — I always hope to find beauty. Beauty as a mirror of truth, as Plato said in a dialogue with Saint Augustine. Humanity is hungry for beauty».
In his search for «concreteness in abstractness» and, at the same time, for «abstractness in concreteness», there is no duel between
ethics and aesthetics and beauty is not necessarily attributable to effect
and amazement. His architecture affirms this with great clarity. Campo Baeza — paraphrasing one of his recurring quotations — is a Don Quixote who fights for the survival of architectural quality, in a scenario characterized by the continuous transformation and evo-lution of economic and production logics. An essential cultural battle aimed at preventing part of the built works from being irreparably com-promized in the «translation» step of the project.
The history of Campo Baeza is, even before the story of an archi-tect, the story of an intellectual who teaches by learning and learns through teaching, faithful to the logic that sees the teacher as the syn-thesis of three essential conditions.
As he says, it is necessary to KNOW, KNOW HOW TO TEACH and WANT TO TEACH, considering KNOWLEDGE, PEDAGOGY and COM-MITMENT as synonyms of MEMORY, UNDERSTANDING and WILL.
In architecture the same principle applies:
YOU MUST TRY TO DO ARCHITECTURE — says Campo Baeza — with FEELING and MEASURE, INTERRUPTION and DECISION.
He belives «Architecture is an intellectual action that needs TIME»6.
«Teaching is luck. Teaching is a gift, because you learn more than you teach. As a teacher I try to convey architecture through what I am doing, not because my work is special but because I think it is the most precise and direct way to teach. Teaching and planning are not easy, but for me it is what allows me to continue “sharpen the blade”. Unfortunately, it takes a long time and the difficulty lies in not being able to sometimes choose what to do. Especially for young people. However, staying in academia, even if it requires sacrifices, is worth the effort. My teacher Alejandro de la Sota, with whom I had a special relationship, had advised me, once finished my studies, to stay out of university for five years to work and then return to university, to teach. Freedom is the key word»7.
His idea of architecture pursues the idea of construction as a centre of gravity of architecture, as a physical place and aspiration to which architecture unequivocally tends.
The construction, therefore, as a material synthesis of archi-tectural theory, of its unchanged laws, and of its changing status.
In the introduction of the above-mentioned book, La idea
con-struida, Campo Baeza states that: «Architecture is the IDEA
mate-rialized, with measures that relate to man, the centre of architecture. IT IS A BUILT IDEA. The history of architecture, far from being only a history of forms, is basically a history of constructed ideas. Forms disin-tegrate over time, but ideas remain, they are eternal»8.
He places the built ideas — and therefore his theories — in front of his own figure: architecture always comes before the architect.
There are two approaches to designing. One which works by subtraction of matter: a sort of architect sculpture that digs in the mass to bring out shapes and spatiality. Another which, on the con-trary, works by addition, juxtaposing elements capable of having a sense accomplished in themselves and an absolute sense as a whole, through conforming relationships that one creates with the other. A sort of architect musician who composes by putting in sequence and in a wise relationship a few elements — the twelve notes — through harmonious, melodic and separated by pauses — the voids — to which he attributes equal importance to the notes — the solids.
The performance of a work by Campo Baeza follows the archi-tectural score with precision and musical sense. In this sense, the theories of Nelson Goodman — an American philosopher who relates the creative musical act, the architectural one and their different exe-cution methods — reverberate.
Execution is transformed — as by an impalpable miracle — into creation.
Creation: a magical word for Campo Baeza. A word around which the entire solar system of architecture revolves. It is no coincidence that the architect Baeza and the theorist Baeza, precisely in the word
creation, meet.
They find an inscrutable point of reference and meeting in the profound theories of Stefan Zweig, Austrian philosopher, but also wri-ter, journalist, playwright and poet, who held lectures between 1939 and 1940 in New York and Buenos Aires, entitled The Secret of Artistic
Creation, trying to make sense of the miracle of the idea behind any
artistic form.
Campo Baeza claims that it would be enough to replace the term artistic creation with architecture that everything would work equal-ly well. His works stand out for their embarrassing consistency that often constitutes the fragility of the architect’s work.
His works — as Paul Valery’s Eupalinos9 would say — sing and
continue to sing over time. In Valery’s work, Campo Baeza interprets both the figure of Eupaline, a refined lover of form and beauty, as well as the figure of Tridone, ship builder and profound connoisseur of in-stances of technical nature.
So what are the ingredients of his architecture?
Architecture — he says — is like good food: to be a good cook, you must use ingredients that are often well known. It is therefore the way of harmonizing the ingredients that transforms a normal diet — building — into an act of haute cuisine — architecture.
In the works of Campo Baeza, the themes (i.e. the ingredients) are those rooted in the history of the discipline and are unchangeable in architecture: the ground link and the relationship with the ground; the
section as a space-revealing tool; light as a solid architectural element;
the definition of the elements proper to the architectural phenome-non: the context, the function, the composition, the construction, and,
last but not least, essential nature — the «more», therefore, with «less» — as absolute sense of Architecture.
In February 2014 Campo Baeza published an essay dedicated and addressed to children, entitled Quiero Ser Arquitecto10, and dedicated
to all those who have a dream and who want to build this dream. In this short, but very clear text, he explains that architecture is comparable to «going up and down a staircase»: you can take two steps to go up but can’t take two to go down. The text is intended to clari-fy what it means to be an architect (meaning by architect: a creator, a thinker, a builder). Translating these terms: the architect is a dreamer, an artist, a technician, who works similarly to a doctor, a chef, a poet.
A text that could be useful to introduce in our schools, in the pre-sentations of our degree courses in the academic field as it brings the heart of the problem to the centre: doing architecture is a job.
Precisely in wanting to reaffirm architecture as a profession and in the action of looking for a way to understand its constructive and poetic essence, dwell the thought and talent of an architect who elects coherence and commitment, also social, to necessary pieces to become an architect by being an architect, promoting the architectural theory manifesto construction: the work of architecture as a book built to strive for eternity.
1 A. Campo Baeza, La suspensión del tiempo. Diario de un arquitecto, Fundación Arquia, Barcelona; Catarata, Madrid 2017. 2 «Me gustaría que mi ARQUITECTURA fuera / Tan PRECISA como la de Bernini, tan Luminosa. / Tan NATURAL como la de Barragán, para los hombres. / Tan DESHABILLÉ como la de Le Corbusier, tan fuerte y tan potente. / NO para alcanzar la fama / sino para hacer felices a los hombres. / NO para ser fotografiada / sino para ser vivida. / NO sólo para nuestro tiempo / sino para siempre». A. Campo Baeza, La idea construida, COAM, Madrid 1998, p. 41; trans. The Built Idea, Oscar Riera Ojeda Publishers, Shenzhen 2015, p. 58.
3 «L’opera presente serve da tramite tra il passato e il futuro; non è un momento di sosta ma il punto obbligato di passaggio della storia, dall’ieri verso il domani. La garanzia della validità di un’opera odierna è proprio nell’obbligare la storia a passare per le nuove invenzioni». E. N. Rogers, «Memoria e invenzione nel design», Casabella-Continuità, 239, May 1960, p. 1; now in E. N. Rogers, Editoriali di Architettura, Einaudi, Turin 1968, pp. 137-149.
4 «Né Mies né Le Corbusier hanno mai copiato, imitato la forma o il linguaggio dell’Acropoli o del Partenone, eppure hanno sempre saputo che c’è bisogno di avere le proprie radici afondate nella storia, non per copiare ma per sapere. E questa sapienza è necessaria. Questa sapienza, che è conoscenza della storia, è anche conoscenza della tecnologia». M. P. Vettori, «Cultura tecnologica, teorie e prassi del progetto di architettura / Technlological culture, theory and practice of architectural design. Jesús Aparicio, Jesús Donaire, Alberto Campo Baeza and Ignacio Vicens y Hualde», TECHNE, Journal of Technology for Architecture and Environment, 13, 2017, p. 348.
5 «La ragione, pertanto, è il principale strumento dell’architetto: non si può difendere l’architettura come “artisticità” e nemmeno come pura ragione. L’architettura è ragione accompagnata dalla conoscenza della tecnologia». Ivi, p. 349.
6 «L’architettura è un’azione intellettuale che ha bisogno di TEMPO». Ivi, p. 352. 7 «Insegnare è una fortuna. Fare didattica è un regalo, perché s’impara più di quanto s’insegna. Come docente cerco di trasmettere l’architettura attraverso quello che sto facendo, non perché la mia opera sia speciale ma perché penso sia la via più precisa e diretta per insegnare. Insegnare e progettare non è facile, ma per me è quello che mi permette di continuare ad “affilare il bisturi”. Purtroppo, richiede molto tempo e la difficoltà sta nel non poter talvolta scegliere a cosa dedicarsi. Soprattutto per i giovani. Tuttavia, rimanere nel mondo accademico, anche se richiede sacrifici, vale la pena. Il mio maestro Alejandro de la Sota, con cui avevo un rapporto speciale, mi aveva consigliato, una volta finiti gli studi, di stare fuori dall’università per cinque anni per lavorare e poi ritornare in università, per insegnare. La liberà è la parola chiave». Ivi, p. 351.
8 «[Arquitectura] Es idea materializada con medidas que hacen relación al hombre, centro de la Arquitectura. Es idea construída. La Historia de la Arquitectura, lejos de ser solo una Historia de las formas, es básicamente una Historia de la Ideas Construídas. Las formas se destruyen con el tiempo pero las ideas permanecen, son eternas». A. Campo Baeza, La idea construida, op. cit., p. 6. 9 P. Valéry, Eupalinos ou l’Architecte, Nouvelle Revue Française, Paris 1923. 10 A. Campo Baeza, Quiero Ser Arquitecto, Ed. Mairea-UPM, Madrid 2014; trans. I Want to Be an Architect, AMAG, Madrid 2014.
Elisa Boeri obtained her Ph.D. in
History of Architecture at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia in 2016, and is now Post-doc Research Fellow at the Department of Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering of Politecnico di Milano. She carries out research on the history of modern and contemporary architecture, and has widely published on the work of Jean-Jacques Lequeu.
Barbara Bogoni is Professor in
Architectural and Urban Design at the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies of Politecnico di Milano. Together with Eduardo Souto de Moura, she coordinates the Architectural Design in Historical Context Studio in the Master Programme in Architectural Design and History at the Mantova Campus, where she sits in the Scientific Committee of the UNESCO Chair in Architectural Preservation and Planning in World Heritage Cities, and is delegate for the international relationships with European Countries.
Marco Borsotti is Professor in Interior
Architecture and Exhibition Design at the School of Architecture Urban Planning Construction Engineering of Politecnico di Milano, where he is member of the Interior Architecture, Museums, Built Environment research group in the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies. He is author of several publications in the field of exhibition design, contemporary dwelling and sacred architecture.
Federico Bucci is Chairholder of
the UNESCO Chair in Architectural Preservation and Planning in World Heritage Cities, and Professor in History of Architecture at Politecnico di Milano, where he also serves as Rector’s Delegate for Cultural Policies and Vice-Rector of the Mantova Campus.
Christian Campanella is architect
and Professor in Conservation and Restoration of Architecture at the Department of Architecture, Built
Environment and Construction Engineering of Politecnico di Milano. He has widely published in the field of architectural preservation, and participated in various projects focused on architectural heritage, such as Castello di Masino (Turin), Castello della Manta (Cuneo), Palazzo Baronale in the Avio Castle (Trento) and Villa dei Vescovi in Torreglia (Padua).
Luca Cardani obtained a Ph.D. in
Architectural Composition at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia in 2017, and is now Post-doc Research Fellow at the Department of Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering of Politecnico di Milano. He also practices architecture and takes part in international competitions and research projects.
Emilio Faroldi is Professor in
Architectural Technology at Politecnico di Milano, where he also serves as Vice Rector and Professor of the International Academy of Architecture. He is Editor in Chief of the scientific journal TECHNE_ Journal of Technology for Architecture and Environment, and Director of the university Master Programme in Sport Architecture.
Massimo Ferrari is architect
and Professor in Architectural and Urban Design in the Department of Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering of Politecnico di Milano. He is the editor of many architecture and art publications, and the curator of several exhibitions. Since 2017 he is member of the Executive Board of the Scientific Society Icar 14 PROARCH.
Vittorio Longheu is architect and
Professor in Architectural Design at the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies of Politecnico di Milano. Graduated at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia, he started his architectural pratice in 1989, combining his professional career with research and teaching activities carried out in various Italian universities.
Angelo Lorenzi is Professor in
Architectural and Urban Design in the Department of Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering of Politecnico di Milano. He has lectured in various international Universities, such as the São Carlos School at the University of São Paulo (USP) and the Institute without Boundaries of the G. Brown College of Toronto.
Renata Cristina Mazzantini is
Professor in Preservation Design at the Department of Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering of Politecnico di Milano. In parallel to academic research, she has carried out several professional activities on the preservation and enhancement of cultural heritage, and has worked for the Presidency of the Italian Republic, the Chamber of Deputies, FAI and Regione Siciliana.
Elena Montanari is Professor in Interior
Architecture and Exhibition Design at the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies of Politecnico di Milano. Since 2008 she has participated in international research projects investigating museums’ and memorials’ evolution, and currently is involved in various activities organized within the UNESCO Chair in Architectural Preservation and Planning in World Heritage Cities at the Mantova Campus.
Luigi Spinelli is Professor in
Architectural Design in the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies of Politecnico di Milano, where he also is member of the Academic Board of the Ph.D. Programme in Architectural, Urban and Interior Design, and Coordinator of the Master of Science in Architectural Design and History at the Mantova Campus. From 1986 to 2013 he served in the editorial staff of the Domus magazine; since 2010 he is an editor of Territorio, of which he became deputy editor in 2019.
Claudia Tinazzi obtained a Ph.D. in
Architectural Composition at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia, and is now Professor in Architectural and Urban Design in the Department of Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering of Politecnico di Milano. Her research activities are mainly focused on the figure of Aldo Rossi and, since 2015, on the
The sixteen essays explore the work of a selection of contemporary architects who have developed different interpretations and uses of memory: Andrew Berman, Renzo Piano, José Ignacio Linazasoro, Paolo Zermani, Alberto Campo Baeza, Guido Canali, Pierre-Louis Faloci, Philippe Prost, Elisa Valero Ramos, João Luís Carrilho da Graça, Miller & Maranta, Ricardo Bak Gordon, Tabuenca & Leache, Tony Fretton, Renato Rizzi, Eduardo Souto de Moura and Álvaro Siza Vieira.
The authors are part of the scientific community running the international Master of Science at the Mantova Campus of Politecnico di Milano; the selected works refer to the many
protagonists of contemporary architecture who have lectured within the MantovArchitettura programme — a cultural project organized by the University to foster the exploration of the relationships between Architectural Design and History.
